The Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe black money held its first meeting on Monday with the panel deliberating on whether some cases could be put on a fast track.
The finance ministry said that “during the meeting, detailed modalities of proceeding further with the Supreme Court
mandate were discussed and the roadmap decided.”

The statement said the next meeting of the SIT will be convened shortly to take stock of the follow-up of the decisions taken at Monday’s parleys.

The SIT, headed by retired Supreme Court judge MB Shah, has a broad mandate which will include “all other investigations already commenced and are pending, or awaiting to be initiated, with respect to any other known instances of the stashing of unaccounted monies in foreign bank accounts by Indians or other entities operating in India.”

They include besides the Deputy Governor of RBI and the revenue secretary, the heads of the CBI, IB, RAW, ED, Central Board of Direct Taxes, DRI, Narcotics Control Bureau, Financial Intelligence Unit, and Joint Secretary (Foreign Tax and Tax Research).

The SC had directed the government to constitute an SIT to investigate individuals whose names were disclosed by Germany for having accounts in LGT Bank in Liechtenstein—a European principality known for its banking secrecy laws.

The I-T department has given to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) names of 17 individuals who had held accounts in Liechtenstein’s LGT Bank.

In last two years, the I-T dept has collected 7,704 “items of information containing details of payments received by Indian citizens in various countries, besides information from LGT Bank accounts.”